Holy cow High Gravity

[AzOr]

Over the weekend I pressed about 100lbs of Stayman Winesaps.

The gravity was 1.068! This is my third season pressing my own apples and usually the og of my juice is between .055 and .060.
These apples have been sweating for about 3 weeks. So obviously they’ve lost a bit of moisture and the sugars have concentrated.


I really don’t want a 9% cider as an every day drinker. Has anyone added water to dilute their juice? I know it sounds like heresy but that’s just too high. I may do a smaller batch of higher abv cyser but I really like a single varietal winesap cider.

fyi- I used my refractometer to get the reading. I measured twice to be sure. I haven’t needed to calibrate because it’s been dead on with my hydrometer when measuring og for beer.

 

[Chalkyt]

I haven't needed to do this, but in his chapter on Juicing and Fermenting, Andrew Lea (Craft Cider Making) suggests the following...

"In practice it is an empirical fact that dilution of cider up to about 15% (that is, 85% juice equivalent) has little impact on flavour. So a fermented cider at 9% alcohol could be taken back to 7.5% with water without too much adverse effect."

Perhaps others might have some experience with this.

 

[AzOr]

I haven't needed to do this, but in his chapter on Juicing and Fermenting, Andrew Lea (Craft Cider Making) suggests the following...

"In practice it is an empirical fact that dilution of cider up to about 15% (that is, 85% juice equivalent) has little impact on flavour. So a fermented cider at 9% alcohol could be taken back to 7.5% with water without too much adverse effect."

Perhaps others might have some experience with this.

Thanks Chalkyt. That makes a lot of sense. I bet if I took a gravity reading on the apples three weeks ago, it woulda been that much lower.

 

[ncguire]

My stayman tree was the only one that had apples this year due to a late spring freeze and mine were about the same with a refractometer. I wouldn't add water to the juice though, ferment it first and see how it turns out, then worry about the abv... after you've drank a few...

 

[day_trippr]

From a process related view, ^that^ makes perfect sense, as it provides some flexibility for the unseen...

Cheers!

 

[Miraculix]

Isn't also the acid concentrated? Maybe the cider will be much too acidic of not diluted.... I don't see a problem in diluting it after fermentation either, I think that's the safest way. You can run tests and see what works. But don'tt start tasting the undiluted version, try the most diluted version first, otherwise you're taste is already ruined and everything will taste thin compared to the first.

 

[AzOr]

Yes I will ferment the juice as is but will probably wait to dilute.

Really it’s nice to know that Ican dilute, especially for purposes of topping up to eliminate headspace in carboys.